Looking For Richard: Today's society taking a look at Shakespeare Jake Johns Within the film Looking for Richard, Al Pacino takes the works of William Shakespeare and tries to make it more understandable to today's society. Pacino says, " are goal is to reach a...

Pouring of the Sun & All That Fall There are numerous techniques that can be used in a performance to help create the world of a story for the audience. Props, backdrops, and costume are just three of many tools that effectively aid actors in creating this world. All That Fall by Samuel Becke...

"MacBeth", although one of Shakespeare's greatest works, disappointed me when seen on stage. Usually, acting captures the raw emotion and depth of a character's feeling. However, in this recent portrayal, I found there was a great lack of true sentiment resulting in confusion and...

Closer, performed on November 26, 2000 at the Mark Taper Forum, was an excellent show. The play is about two men and two women who are thrown together by chance. Throughout the play, they connect, disconnect and reconnect in bewildering combinations with each other as they try to get "closer" All ...

While watching a performance of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the work of the director was quite clear. I often have trouble trying to determine how much of an influence the director actually has on a production by observing acting choices and design choices. What made the directorial choices so cle...

“Machinal” was a wild and crazy ride through the life of a fatalistic women, distraught by the stress, complexity, and monotony of society. Helen (the main character) gives an outstanding performance. I know that its not unusual to the actor but it always amazes me how the actors mem...

An exemplary play of theatre at its best Poochwater Written by Mike McPhaden Directed by Patrick Conner Starring Mike McPhaden At Theatre Passe Muraille, A 70 minute play titled by its protagonist, Poochwater, excelled in capturing the essence of theatre with special commendation given to...

An exemplary play of theatre at its best Poochwater Written by Mike McPhaden Directed by Patrick Conner Starring Mike McPhaden At Theatre Passe Muraille, **** A 70 minute play titled by its protagonist, Poochwater, excelled in capturing the essence of theatre with special c...

The play "Run for Your Wife," by Ray Cooney and directed by Mackey Skinner, touches on bigamy and homosexuality in a comical way. Performed beautifully by The Baytown Little Theatre and produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc., the production runs weekends from June 10th through J...

The Theater- the antebellum theaters were large and crowded by all classes. With seats as cheap as 12 cents and rarely more than 50 cents, the typical theater audience included lawyers and merchants, and their wives, artisans and clerks, sailors and noisy boys, and a sizeable body of prostitutes. Th...

You don't need to be the best singer, dancer, or actor to succeed in the theater. You just need to feel like you are, whether you have to pretend or not. You can't go on stage with a bad attitude or else you will end up leaving the stage with an even worse attitude. What I mean is, if you think yo...

Nathan's run, published in 1996 used themes and issues, which are present in past and contemporary affairs of society. Juvenile detention, killer teenagers justifying their actions, police corruption, these are all issues found in news and current affairs. Using familiar issues, ideas and theme...

The Canterbury Tales is about an unrelated group of pilgrims traveling together on a pilgrimage. One of the major aspects of the journey is the unique diversity of the characters. There are knights, nuns, monks, lower-class tradesman and single women. They interact together and tell each other thei...

I have never been to a live play performance, but I have seen one on video. I loved it as though I was reading a great storybook; being able to stop at any time and pick up where I left off, but I never thought about the relationship between the performers and the audience. Nor did I think of the i...

Sunddenly, Bob dashes out into the audience and jokingly asks one of the audience members if she would like to catch a movie after the play. This type of thig was typical at The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in Samuel Park in Dallas. It was an entertaining comedy with many themes and ma...

"Actors, never feel your bodies, make your bodies feel you." This quote comes from one of the most gifted stage and screen actors alive. Kevin Spacey has truly mastered the art of both theatre and film acting, although clearly this is not an easy task. These two extremely different types of actin...

When you go to the theater you may never see your name in lights but your role as an audience member is just as important as the star of the show. A play never really exists until it is performed in front of an audience. That makes an audience what the art of playwriting is all about, it's th...

The other day, when I found out I was going to right a paper on a play, it crossed my mind that I wanted to see the Rocky Horror Picture show on Broadway in New York City. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally a small experimental production in a London theatre. From here, it took off inter...

Ragtime The play Ragtime is set in New York in 1906. This musical is very intriguing because the story of the characters in quite emotional. The actions that take place in this play are very embellished. In order to portray some of the dramatic scenes of the play, the actors must use exaggerati...

The off-Broadway show "Jitney" is based on a dramatic play by August Wilson. The production was held at the Union Square Theater. The house has a very pleasant, cozy, and warm atmosphere. The structure of the small theater and its thrust stage successfully achieves intimacy. It also creates a ...

Laura Mulvey and Walter Benjamin are film critics who base their thoughts on established theory. Ms. Mulvey uses a psychoanalytic approach while Benjamin utilizes a political and economic view based on Marxist theory. In his statement, "If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by ...

For nearly every performer, stage fright is a very common state of mind. A sudden anxiety for either hurrying the performance, or not performing at all are rather mild symptoms of the dreaded stage fright. Many people in the theatrical field have to deal with stage fright at some part of their care...

As the great Shakespeare once quipped "Life is but a stage and we are merely players." A metaphorical truth rings evidently in that statement. Our text and workbook confronts the issues of roles and conflict within roles in detail. To elucidate my own experience with roles and inheren...

"The Misanthrope" was not similar to anything one might expect to see in a modern-day theatrical production. The dialogue was hard to understand as an audience member. Moliere's play is done in classic verse format, meaning that the play was done completely in rhyme. An additional obstacle for th...

I approached this first rehearsal having written detailed notes on my directorial plans. The notes contained step-by-step stage directions as well as help with characters, and were given to the actors at the start of the rehearsal. My thoughts in doing this were that it would hopefully make it easi...